Tag Archives: Sex

[perhaps I should have explained at the beginning that Chapter titles do not indicate endings for blog posts. One chapter can contain several blog posts. For example this post begins with a chapter title that will make sense only in the next blog post…]

[begin blog post #25]

Chapter 12 – The Dark Sun; a Few Explanations

“We owe each other some serious explanations, I think,” says the doctor.

“Yes sir.” I return to my subservient mode as a precaution to this conversation. I cannot forget how the last one ended and I have Deirdre to worry about now.

“Look, you don’t need to take that subservient tone with me now.” He says as he feels my reluctance and fear of his changing moods. “I know I must do more than apologize for striking you but see, I’ve been on this world so long I’ve taken on some of its patterns within myself. I have great difficulty fighting back the terrible disease of this place. On this world, women are ectohormonal all the time. That creates sexual lust beyond any male’s power to assimilate. Because of the social taboos on sex, the repression results in a deadly combination of fear, anger and violent hatred towards the females. As an anthropologist, I came here in part to identify and isolate the source of it but I have had no success, rather the opposite. This world is dragging me down with it.

“I hated myself for striking you, and for having sex with you without asking, yet another part of me said that to do less under the circumstances was to deny my manhood and my rights. I could not allow a woman to flaunt her power, any kind of power, over me. I reacted as any normal male would react here. Basically, from the programming here, you were the one responsible for me striking you in anger and hate. If you are asked a direct question, you must answer immediately and truthfully at all times. Never try to shrug it off, that shows disrespect and truly enrages men.

“Love-hate, love-hate. It bangs in our head, hearts and loins all the time. It’s not so bad if we can avoid contact with females, but it rages the closer we get to one. Utterly irrational feelings arise and boil over into emotional outbursts. But at least I am able to demonstrate to you that I am still somehow different?

“After I sent you out I came in this place and got totally, disgustingly drunk! I remained in here for two days without food or washing until my Cydroid servants brought me out and restored me to some semblance of sanity. I hate this place…”

“Doctor, why did you call your people “Cydroids” and not androids?”

“Ah that, well, I cannot explain now. Why don’t I let the Cydroids themselves explain it all to you later? Just think of them as androids if that makes it easier for you until it is explained properly. Now, Antierra, I want you to speak to me freely, as an equal. At the moment my mind is free and as long as the Cholradil is with us you are safe. She seems to provide a dampening cushion to this world’s energies.” And with a sudden change of tone, almost beseeching for forgiveness, he asks, “Do you object I had sex with her? Please answer me as a person to a person.”

What an unexpected question! “There is no jealousy in me in that respect. In fact I think it was a very good thing for her. I think the Cholradil is equipped to do this with any number of men and women without arousing more than surface jealousy in others. When she is with me, she is not with anyone else. However she is not immune to jealousy in herself. There are human feelings there also.”

“I found the same to be true. When we made love she was entirely mine, even with you lying but a few meters away in the auto-medic. She is a fascinating creature: there seem to be few contradictions in her mind.”

“Isn’t it strange, doctor, that we speak of her as if she wasn’t here, listening to us speak?”

“Watch her.” He makes me notice Deirdre in a new light. “She isn’t really listening to our conversation. Notice her expressions. She is in full empath mode searching your body for any weakness the auto-medic may have missed. She can hear us, of course, but our conversation is meaningless to her because it doesn’t concern her personally. Cholradils do not care what others think of them as a general rule. They exist on separate neural pathways of emotion-feeling. She would make an interesting case study on my world.”

“On your world, doctor? So I was right in thinking that you and your Cydroids are not from T’Sing Tarleyn but actually from another world; another planet? You have just made the statement I was hoping to hear from you. If you are not from here, then you must have the means to leave this place, a ship? Could you maybe consider getting her to your world, or at least off this one and onto some safe place? I don’t know if you are aware of her predicament: Cholradils cannot fight. They cannot hurt others for when they do, they feel the full impact of it within their own minds and suffer even more than the other. Consequently doctor, she cannot fight. Her first arena combat is a sentence of violent torture and death for her.”

“I was aware of that, yes, but thank you for the reminder. Antierra, I would like to help both of you. The Cydroids take the trip to our home world fairly regularly and taking her on the ship would not be a great burden. Travel there incurs only a little over six months of transit time debt. The real problem is getting her admitted to our world. She may be refused entry, in which case what can the Cydroids do with her? They must land before they can return here. If they land her illegally she will be put in cryogenic freeze unless I can somehow guarantee some sort of refugee status for her. Our world does not, as yet, have any clear policy on granting such status to off-world aliens. Our ability to travel space is relatively new and harboring refugees from other worlds has not been needed or considered to date.

“Taking Deirdre there would be to put her at the mercy of pure goodwill unless it could be demonstrated that this Cholradil is a paragon of intellectual prowess. If that were the case, no problem. She would become an instant celebrity in our society. Our fledgling World Court ( which I helped establish before I posted myself to this world) would accept her without question.

“There is another, most obvious and more pressing problem before us: getting her out of this compound alive and without endangering the lives of many others, mostly innocent bystanders if there is an escape. You know how they react to their security being breached here.

“For me there is also a personal aspect to this venture. If you want me to seriously consider taking such a risk for you and the Choradil I must insist on a fair exchange for my costs and troubles. You will owe me something in return. You will have to tell me exactly and truthfully who you are and what you are doing here, as well as how you got here – I want the real story. Further to that you must agree to join with us whatever be the cost to you personally. Can I hold you to that?”

Deirdre desperately needs to be trained if she is ever going to become a fighter. I have earned a certain kind of “reputation” among the handlers and developed an understanding of their pecking order in the training compounds, from the overseer down to the lowly trainers.

Perhaps I should explain the hierarchy of authority and power surrounding the whole aspect of arena fighting. First are the owners whom we never see or have contact with. They foot the bills for our maintenance and they recoup these losses and sometimes even make money from the gambling on our fights. The fighting is arranged by the arena council, a group of a dozen owners or other influential people representing Hyrete and other major centers where fighter slaves are bred and raised. Then come a variety of “judges” who adjudicate on the various laws and rules of combat, weapons and the conduct of fighters and challengers. They also decide when a fighter is ready to enter her first arena combat. Then come the overseers, guards, handlers and trainers.

What a fighter must quickly learn is not so much the official power of each class of male over her, but their pecking order. It is important to develop a sense of which men are the most power hungry and vicious and which men are there because it’s a fairly safe job, certainly more so than being palace guard, police or military. These latter can often be manipulated if one knows how to play the sex and humility angle. I know the ones who have enough authority among their peers to approach for small favours. By dint of hints and innuendos, I am able to make my desire to train Deirdre known to a couple of handlers.

In return, possibly as a favour to an old and battered crone but one considered still in good enough form and a safe bet in a fair fight, I am given permission to begin her training. I cannot fail to notice more than a hint of cruel amusement on the faces of the handlers when they authorize the training of Deirdre. The reason is soon brought home to me.

She is utterly hopeless in hand-to-hand combat. Though taller than most T’Sing Tarleynan females, she has no aptitude for weapons. Try as she may, she cannot produce a single hit and winces as if in pain each time she does attempt it. She blocks thrusts and jumps blows with amazing alacrity, using subconscious reflex actions that blur her movements. She performs intricate dances of evasion to any thrust, even using the staff weapon as if it was made for pole vaulting, her acrobatics causing cheers to come from the males watching from the benches where they sip on their home brewed mead. No doubt she is a superbly trained performer and entertainer.

But her heart refuses to enter fighting mode. There is not one ounce of motivation there. All the wonderful energy I experience from her when she helps me, or makes love to me, there is none of that on the grounds. I am in despair. One day she will be thrown in the arena and the worst possible will be done to her. Why won’t she fight?

In each session I speak to her of this. I try to impress the necessity of going along. “You are strong, daring, probably the fastest I’ve ever seen. And you are fearless,” I say to her, “So why can’t you do what you are supposed to?” Today she shrugs, drops her staff to the ground – a violation of my own rules as an unofficial trainer that could get her severely punished – and turns from me. When I grab her and spin her around to upbraid her for her neglect and cowardice, I see her face is covered in large, hot tears.

In desperation I ask, “Who are you, Deirdre? I know you are not gladiator material.”

“I am ‘Cholradil’ (pronounced show-ray); a natural born empath.”

I am shocked by that revelation. “I thought they had no such class of female.” I reply to her.

“They don’t.” She replies. “It is said we are rare – they call us atavistic ‘throw-backs’ or freaks. When they can use us they keep us, otherwise we are killed as soon as they discover what we are. About three years ago while I was still in crèche I was caught stealing herbal medicines to help a wounded friend. They could have flogged me to death but instead they put me in the line-up to be sold for gladiator training. That was their real punishment. Since the buyers were not made aware of my predicament, they made money on me which they would not have had they just killed me.

“They knew I couldn’t fight and considered it was a great joke to put a Cholradil in among fighters. I cannot harm anyone or anything, let alone kill, you see? I never told you because there was no point in it. I always knew I would never be able to fight anyone and that I would be killed the very first time I go into the fighting ring. It is my punishment. It is the way of it.”

“It is the way of it.” They say that with so much fatalism.

“They actually tolerate individuals who could never harm others? They have empaths on this twisted world? Why?” The question was rhetorical, of course. I did not expect her to have the answer.

“I was born feeling what you feel; what anyone feels who is close enough to me. If you hurt, I hurt. If I hurt you, I hurt me. When I was still very young, I knew if another beat me up, I could do nothing but put my arms up to block the blows. But if that person was hurt, I’d find some way to help her because I could always feel what she felt in her pain. It wasn’t what you call “compassion”. I didn’t have to like her. I did not have to want to do it but I had to help her heal so our pain would go away. After a while they did not hurt me anymore. They left me alone and came to me only if they were hurt. I would heal them and they would ignore me. I was something they could use. I could never play in their violent games or listen to their thoughts of violence against one-another and against the authorities they hated.”

“What class of girls were you bred for and raised in, then?”

“Sex slaves. Entertainers. Pleasers. We learned all that is known about sex.”

“But your branding says you are class 04, fighter. How can that be?”

“They changed it by grafting and re-branding to make more money. I am tall and look as if bred as fighter. It was a ruse on their part. I sold for much money.”

Well, that explains some of what I’d observed in her. “Is that why you speak so clearly and knowingly? You were educated in the arts of words, of communication?”

“Yes. I would be worth more. Maybe even become a concubine of some great man.”

“Anee?”No answer.“Aneeta!”“Yes ma…”“What are you doing up there, sleeping?”“Finishing the boys’ room ma.”“Leave that, come down. I need you to go to the Bellamy’s and get me fresh produce. We’ll have payin’ guests tonight.”A pretty young woman of about fifteen, with thick auburn hair adorned with a couple of ribbons, comes down. Her heavy footsteps indicate how reluctant she is to obey her mother.“Mom, can’t you send Petee?”“Pete’s in the lower meadow with your pa, he’s working. What’s wrong with you?”“I hate the Bellamy’s mom. Joram is always shoving his hands into my dress, feeling me. I hate him. I hate what he does. And he smells like something dead.”“Well, look who’s so high ‘n mighty now! You’re a woman now an’ Joram, he’s grown into a fine young man and he fancies you! Do you have any idea how much land the Bellamy’s own, or lease?”“That’s not the point, mom. I don’t like him and I don’t want him. I hate it when he touches me and breathes on me.”“That may be girl, but it’s time you learned some facts of life. How do you think I fed you and your oldest brother when your pa was in the Lord’s wars?”“They did that to you?”“Well, Mr. Bellamy did. He was a fine looking young man then, exempt from the war, and for convenience sake I was called the widow Lacey. I was still beautiful then too.”“You’re still beautiful, ma! But that’s not right, what they do, is it? I read in a book at the butcher’s last week that it’s wrong. The book was on the corner table and I was waiting for my cut. It was called a “digest” and had many stories in it. This one was by a woman. She wrote that we shouldn’t be “sexually molested” she called it, and we should be able to vote.” “You read that did you? I warned your pa not to teach you to read, that it would only cause us all trouble, and here we go. You read what other people think. Can’t you think for yourself? Joram Bellamy is sweet on you and he makes sure you always get the freshest produce, and he gives you more than we pay for. Last Fall they sold us their best pig, no extra charge. Don’t you understand anything?”She points to her breasts: “It’s time you realized the value of these in a man’s world, Anee. And the lower part of you as well. We have a certain value and there is an exchange. It’s been that way forever, don’t you go questioning it and upsetting things for us. The Bellamy’s are much richer than us; they’re our neighbours and it’s you and I that keep things good between us. Your pa doesn’t question my loyalty to him, but he well knows how I kept our small farm and fed my children during those years he was gone. I started to talk about it once, long ago. He put his hand over my mouth, then took it off and kissed me, long and sweetly, and he thanked me. That is the kind of man your pa is.”“I know pa is good, ma. But this is about me. I don’t want to settle with Joram. I don’t like him at all and certainly not that way.” “He’s young, what, seventeen? He’ll grow up, mature, be more like his dad.”“Well that settles it then: I don’t like his dad either. He’s done it to me too, you know. And he smells bad too!”“Yeah, I know how he smells. But some of it is the smell of success and money. We’re lucky some of that smell has rubbed off on us, girl. Don’t be so particular. One would think you were born in the Lord’s castle with a silver spoon in your hand.”“You don’t care do you! I want an education and I want to become a teacher, see? I can’t have a man if I’m to be a school teacher.”“Oh, a teacher is it? Listen to the professor. Miss Radick has a lot of years in her yet, there won’t be any need for a new teacher in these parts for many years, girl.”“I don’t mean around here, mom. I mean to go and teach in the coal mining country. They can’t get, or keep, teachers up there. I’ll be needed, for sure.”“The coal country? God help us! You’ve taken leave of your senses, girl. Half the people there don’t even attend services. Men are drunkards and beat their wives. The children are half naked and starving most of the time. And the dirt, it’s in everything there. What an idea Anee.”“I read about that too, ma. They need teachers like myself, girls with farming and gardening experience. I can teach them to grow food and I can explain about basic hygiene.”“What are you talking about! Who is Basic Hy-Gene? Is that somebody you met at the butcher’s also?”“Ma, hygiene means cleanliness. Basic means plain. Plain cleanliness. It’s not just the job, ma, it’s something I’ve known for sometime that I want to do. I need to do it. It’s a calling, see? Like a vocation? Do you understand that?”The mother stopped, turned to face her daughter – they were the same height and their eyes met. There were tears in her mother’s face. Then she reached for her daughter and embraced her.“Oh Anee! Of course I understand that part. I was there too, and I turned away to marry your pa. He was so good to me, and I knew I would be forever safe with him. But I was afraid also; afraid to learn how to read n’ do numbers; afraid it would change everythin’ for me. I hid from my calling in my family. I wanted security, not adventure.I suffered a long time over my choice and now it’s come back to me in you. I suppose that’s fair enough; that God would give me you so you could go and do what I chose not to.
I will go with you to Bellamy’s and if Joram is there I will explain your choice to him. It doesn’t matter what he says, you will be a teacher, Anee. Your pa will be so proud, I can’t wait to see his face when you tell him.”

They both put on their long grey coats and boots to ward off the damp air and residual dew of a sunless day and walked silently, hand in hand, to their rich neighbour’s farm. A keen observer would have noticed there was a certain lightness to their steps.

CONTENTS DELETED. If you need this section for reference, please contact me at

shatara@telus.net

(Continuing with the story of “The Garbage Man”. The title has changed as you can see, likely to change again and my two main characters have changed their names again, as you will also see later. I find that it’s becoming an intriguing story, and whoever is actually moving the writing is quite a bit of a romantic. I don’t mind it, actually, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the main story… whatever that’s going to be!!! Enjoy.)

“Let me go. I will put my sword away.”

Lotharic released her and she slowly, reluctantly, put away her sword. Then she faced him.

She couldn’t answer; she just burst into tears and loud sobbing. So much goodness in so short a time and for once she did not block it; did not insist that it was just another trick. For once she fully accepted it and through blinding tears, revelled in her joy.

Ever since his people had left him behind to observe human life on Earth he had wandered the city, learning the peoples’ ways, their mores, their languages, absorbing and analyzing. Gradually, over a period of a month he had adapted his earth-human-clone body into a fully functional Earthian body complete with all the feelings and emotions attendant to a born Earthian. He even gave himself a name, Andrew. Andrew Logan. Architect. He liked the concept. After all he was a scientist engineer and Earthian technology was at a very low level of development. There was nothing in it he couldn’t understand and improve after a few minutes of study.

What truly fascinated him however was the human body, its functions and those strangest of things: feelings and emotions. He could make the tongue move and speak any language, making sounds was easy, mimicking any human or animal call, simple. He had quickly learned which foods to ingest to keep the body at peak performance and he could keep it awake indefinitely without any negative consequences. But his feelings, that he did not understand. Well, it was because he could not prevent them from manifesting; he could not think them gone or reason them away: they just happened and he was never ready for them. The worst part however was that which followed the feelings; what the Earthians themselves called emotions.

“I have never known hate,” he thought to himself, “it is a totally alien concept to me, but if I could hate, I’d say I hate these feelings, and more, these ridiculous emotions. These things are completely unreasonable. Surely they do not expect to ever develop a properly functioning civilization encumbered with such negative emanations from their brains and bodies?”

“Excuse me, sorry, I was texting. Did you say something to me?” The woman had stood beside him at the bus stop. He was aware of her presence but he failed to realize he was speaking some thoughts aloud and could be overheard. On his world people only listened when you were actually addressing them. But here, they has an insatiable curiosity, from every sense. They reached out to hear, to see, to taste, to smell. They exuded sexual desire or conversely, revulsion. Black and white they were. No peaceful rest of mechanical neutrality. No wonder they lived such short lives: they literally fried themselves in attempts to answer circular questions, and deal with circular emotions.

She kept looking at him. “I haven’t seen you around here” she continued, “Passing through? Or moving to the neighbourhood?” How to respond… oh yes, there is a standard appropriate response for everything: “I’m very sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your activities. Yes, I’m moving in actually.” He added to appear totally normal: “I’m looking for an apartment. Nothing fancy, just a bachelor suite.”

“That’s wonderful, Mr. huh?”

“I’m sorry, I meant to introduce myself properly. My name is Andrew Logan. I am an architect.”

“Callie Brown. Real estate agent. I just finished going through the vacancy list in that apartment building across the street. There are two bachelor suites, one available now, one at the end of the month. Would you like to see them?”

To see them? How strange that she would ask that. If she showed him the apartments’ numbers, he could see them. Surely there was no need to actually take an elevator and walk to the suite to verify that it was there; that what he saw was what existed at that number! He put it down as another of their strange sayings that do not mean what they say: “Have a chair.” “Take a seat.” “Rain check.” “Do lunch.” “Night cap.” “Would you like fries with that?” as if he’d somehow forget to state exactly what he meant to order and needed a reminder.

“Sir?” She had a pleasant voice, and by Earth standards was quite young (he estimated she’d be twenty-eight years, three months and four days old, born at four-thirty-eight of the morning, give or take a couple of minutes, he was quite certain he was “in the ball park” to use another of their nonsensical expressions.) She was also very pretty, so his body kept insisting, and he felt embarrassingly attracted to her, wanting to get closer, to touch, to feel her. Frighteningly powerful urges tugged at his brain.

“Yes. Do I address you as Miss, Ms., or Mrs.?” She had a very attractive smile, again as his body eagerly told him.

“You can just call me Callie; no need for any formalities.”

“Thank you Callie. Yes, I certainly would like to see the apartments, thank you very much.”

As they rode up the elevator he felt her trying to expose herself to him. He wondered again, as he had since the very first day he’d felt those attractions, if these people felt that way about each other, why did they hide themselves behind clothes? Why did they offer so many things that were highly desired, or prized, yet never gave them away to those who wanted them? He had concluded that there was something very wrong with this sentient life. When he communicated his findings to the orbiting ship he’d been granted an extended tour of duty. Of course: he was, after all, Doctor Los, senior analyst.

Before the decision to actually land an observer on the planet he’d participated on several abductions. His people had been trying to understand Earthians for many earth years in order to present information to the High Galactic Council as to whether these sentients, now on the verge of developing functional star drives, could safely be allowed to roam outside their solar system. The problem with abducting the creatures and performing experiments on them is that it did not answer the critical questions. Because of their primitive brain functions they went “off the charts” when discovering they were on a space ship. Some got violent. Some went into cardiac arrest or catatonic and most of the young females, those who didn’t “lose it” as they termed it, just wanted sex with “the gods” as they thought of them and experience “great” sexual orgasms. All of them had to be time-wiped before being returned to their world.

We need someone to interact with them as one of them, on their own world, in their own natural environment; on their own terms. So as senior scientist of the Tholian crew he’d volunteered.

And here he was. In a residential apartment building, rising through several floors with Callie Brown to “look” at an apartment. He wondered then what she’d think, or say, if he told her he already knew exactly, in every detail, what the apartment looked like from extracting the location number in her cell phone? He let the thought pass, the elevator stopped and they exited to walk down a hallway to apartment 1823.

She pressed four keys on a keypad in the door, inserted a metal key and after two green lights began flashing, opened the door. “Old fashioned, I know, but residents like this system, harder to break in.” He stood inside the door, scanning the place. “Go ahead, it’s OK, it’s vacant. Wander through, have a good look. It’s compact and practical. Now for the terms, it’s $2100 a month plus utilities, or you can purchase a package that includes everything, furniture, utilities, maintenance, telephone, TV, Internet and comprehensive insurance for $2600 a month. With current market conditions in the city that’s actually a really good deal.”

She had moved very close to him as she talked, now touching just slightly. Their bodies pulled at each other like magnets. He enjoyed the sensation. He moved against her. She turned to face him, looked up into his eyes, and urgently began to undress him. He saw the bed in her mind, she lying on top, waiting for him. He brought himself back to the moment and as she undressed him, he did the same for her. Soon they were both naked and she walked to the bed, sitting on the side, then deftly lifting her legs and lying prone on it.

“You’re not from around here, are you Andrew?” She smiled more, slowly spreading her legs, inviting him. “Who are you really?”

“We are Tholian analysts from a distant galaxy. We analyze and grade sentient worlds for the Greater Galactic Council. I’m performing an in-depth planetary consciousness analysis.”

“That’s like, an alien? You’re an alien, Andrew?” She didn’t feel to him as much shocked as excited.

“Yes.”

“Oh God, my lucky day or what!” She actually giggled like a young girl.

He stared at her nakedness, her vulnerability, and felt a powerful urge to go down on top of her and meld with her body. He understood that without the clothes he was naked; that his body was male, and that she desired him to join with her in hormonal polarity. He also realized that he felt a need in his body to join with her, a nascent but powerful “sexual” need. By the thoughts in her mind, his erection was all she could think of at the moment.

“It’s how we reproduce” she said as she guided him inside her, “and it’s also the greatest source of pleasure we can ever experience. But I want this one to blow all the others away! Are you up for it? Score: visitor 1, home team 1, we have a tied game?” She laughed at her own joke then it began in earnest.

Still breathing hard, he said, “I sense that you want a child to come from this union. Please assure me that I have the correct interpretation of your feelings?”

“Oh yes, how I wish I could have your child, Andrew. Unfortunately I can’t. Something haywire with my reproductive system.”

“That’s not a problem. These bodies are very simple. I’ve by-passed its objection to the impregnation. You will have a child.”

“Oh boy, now you’ve really scared me. What will he look like?” There was that shallow concern about visual effects again, as if how one “looks like” could possibly have any relevance to one’s life.

“Oh, he’ll have a perfectly normal body but with a slower physical growth rate and much higher IQ than you are used to on this world. You see, we look exactly like you, we are not some strange looking green blob monstrosity of your quaint imaginings. We are humans, just billions of years in your time future. Now please excuse me for a moment, I need to contact my people on the ship.” He watched her for a few moments as she settled down on the bed, fluffing her beautiful brown hair over the pillow and closing her eyes with a deep sigh of perfect contentment. She brought her right hand to cup her breast and ritually thumbed her nipple. Such simple creatures, he thought. If only they knew they were within a hair’s breath of qualifying as angels… if only they could see the truth of it for themselves and act accordingly.

“I’ve entered into a life-relationship with an earth woman and given her a child. I’ll require another tour of duty extension as I’ll have to remain somewhat longer to see her through her short life and guide the child in our ways. Please begin proceedings for clearance for her and the child when she is near her natural termination date, to locate both aboard ship. She will require full body transplant, of course. I will cover any energy costs.”

“Yes, Doctor Los, there will be no complications. We can get all the energy we need from the planet’s sun and satellite. Give us your coordinates when the time comes. Have a pleasant stay.”

The years of bliss passed quickly for Callie Brown, years that were but mere days for Andrew Logan, or Doctor Los. He continued his analysis of Earthian consciousness, and with so much more at stake now for himself. Though it was such a short time, he learned to love “his Callie” as he called her. Whatever she wanted, he would have given her, but she just wanted a small house in the country, with a garden. Here she raised Andrew Junior who grew very slowly by Earthian standards. She was happy with that. “It makes it seem like I have so much more time this way.” She also said to him one day, “It’s as if I never had any other life but this one. I feel so undeservedly blessed, Los.” (She began calling him Los so as not to create confusion between him and Andrew Junior. She didn’t want her son to get used to being called “Junior.”)

Throughout that time, the greatest gift he could give her he withheld from telling her of, that she would be given the choice to enter eternal life, eternal youth, if she wanted it; if she chose to join with the Tholian crew and make Tholia her new home world. Andrew Junior, their son (such an atavistic concept) would also have to make a similar choice.

“She loved simple things… One morning she wasn’t feeling well. The next day, she was gone.” (paraphrase from “Meet Joe Black”)

“You know our first navigator’s got to be a girl who will—”“She will be,” Rydra said. (Babel-17, Samuel R. Delaney)

I’m not asking the world be sane,Pointing at his naked loin, she says,nor am I asking you be either:That would be complete waste.All I want now is sex from you,Great sex, if you can manage.She fondles him, watches him grow:It has potential, much, I like.

In turn he ogles her, full taut nipplesPushed out from cone-shaped breasts,Pointing to either side of his face.With hungry fingers he reaches,Touching, rubbing, twisting lightlyKeeping his eye on that serene faceAnd on her legs: they were swift,And deadly, the Martian women.

But she said, she liked. It wasWhat they’d call on earth, an omen.She wouldn’t hurt him, her desireWould rule her movements andIt was for him at the moment. YetI am insane, she knows, he thoughtTo enter the Martian’s cabin, naked.What will she do, once done with me?

Fear washes pale beneath red lust,Ask her, it said, ask her, beforeYou bed her and she takes your mind.Is she a member of the stranglers?Would she kill him to completeHer needed orgasm before orbit?He’d heard some needed it,It opened their minds to spaceIt’s how they became navigatorsSo went the myth, never dispelled.

Bullshit, he hears himself say,She’s just a woman, needy like meNaked, like me. In lust like me. He reaches his muscular armsFull around her slim, firm waistDraws her tightly to himself,His breathing loud, his heart a hammerHis chest pushes against herHe enters her and both scream.

Ah, best I’ve ever had, he hears.Are they his words, in his headUnrehearsed – is he alive then?They are her words from her lips:Alive, unrehearsed, spoken to his ear.You please me immensely earth man,You live for me. I’ll want you again.Now I must connect to navigation:We depart, quick, do not say a word,I mark you, I find you, later.

Introduction: I was watching “Last Love” that amazing movie with Michael Caine and Clémence Poésy for the third time tonight. I had my netbook on my lap to record passages in the movie when the following story simply jumped at me. I don’t see that is has much to do with the movie, except perhaps the ages of the couple, and the fact that “Mr. Morgan” was a college professor, but anyway, here goes.

“Hello, Matthew, I’m glad you decided to meet after all.”

“Hi, Giselle, what made you think I wasn’t going to show up?”

“Oh, maybe your way of showing a complete lack of interest in my doings?”

“I’m sorry, my face is a complete traitor, plus I’m essentially an asocial person, I thought you knew, understood and accepted that about me?”

“I forgot, Matthew. Should we order?” I tried to make my voice hard and cold but I was trembling with fear inside, to the point of feeling sick.

“Yes, certainly. Garçon?” I moved to sit next to him; the meal was beyond excellent. He talked then, and I listened. Had there been company I would have had to do all the talking.

That’s how it was with us. Matthew and his French girl, the incompatible, impossible couple, they called us. His friends from the college where he teaches English and Philosophy all speak English. When they see my name written down, they call me Giselle with a hard “g” as in guide. They make it sound like gazelle. It’s their little joke, they know how to say my name. I like the feeling the name gazelle gives me, it suits me somehow.

We make a strange pair, there’s no denying that. He’s a twice-divorced college professor who’s also over twice my age. I’m a tall, somewhat skinny brunette who’s a landscape artist and arborist. I spend most of my time outdoors, he spends his days teaching and interacting with people and he’s the one who’s asocial. I love people as much as I love plants.

We met on the bus a couple of months ago when I was having my truck serviced and forced to take the day off. I was on my way to my Yoga class and he dropped a couple of books at my feet. Before he could retrieve them I’d picked them up and as I handed them back to him our eyes met. He has piercing blue eyes and very expressive hands. Call me a slut, but suddenly I wanted those hands on my skin. And I wanted his lips on mine. Just like that. I was taken.

“How would you like to come to Yoga class with me?” I asked him. Why? Some things just have no explanation. I wanted, no, needed, him near me.

“You don’t even know my name, I don’t know yours… did you say Yoga class? I’ve never done Yoga; don’t know much about it except what I’ve read. I don’t see the point of it, actually.” He had a pleasant bass voice that filled my heart with instant and deep longing. I wanted to swim in it, naked.

“I’m Giselle. You?”

“Matthew, Matthew Hislop. What’s your last name?”

“Oh, it’s Laliberté. That’s my maiden name, never married.” Then it struck me, why did I volunteer that information? I know, I wanted him, and my woman’s intuition told me to make myself vulnerable, the best way to attract him in case my physical attributes weren’t enough. Did I ask myself if he was married? No. It’s as if I knew he was free, available and could be mine.

It worked. I came to my stop, got off and he followed me.

“Yoga class, Matthew?”

“Yes. Why not? I’m intrigued now.”

We did Yoga together. Two days and I was in his apartment making love with him. I was a twenty two year old virgin. It was as wonderful as it was frightening. I felt so terribly alone and vulnerable and sure of only one thing: I was lost in his maleness. My lust turned to love and in his own way, he began to love me. How could any woman leave such a man?

I learned how. He did not engage. It was as if he was always in two worlds, one that included me, an exciting convenience, a fun thing, a trophy girl, and another that no one would ever be allowed in. I would have left him after that first week but my body would not let me. I could not imagine ever encountering him when he wasn’t mine. I was addicted to him, to his body, to his hands, to his voice and breath. He exuded a kind of brutal magic I was powerless to break.

Which brings me back to our dinner date at Michael’s where I had intended to confront his coldness. It wasn’t going to happen, I already knew before I got there. I was still taken, and I would remain taken unless his coldness became misogynistic. I would never tolerate that, not ever. Somehow, again that intuition, I knew he would never turn on me.

I would live my life with him and take care of him as he got older.

I can imagine cutting his graying hair, trimming his eyebrows and ear hairs. I can imagine even more personal caring. Though he is a much better cook than I, I can also imagine the time when I’ll have to do it for him. By then of course I will have learned to make his favourite dishes. I can imagine my love for him growing in his cold soil. I am that kind of seed that does best in a winter soil. And I have a heart that needs to give. He would fulfill that need for me. With him I can imagine the unimaginable and thrill at the thoughts.

I got lucky, there is no denying that, but perhaps he got even luckier.